Which is tragic, because it's more correct mathematically.
I'm American, and I grew up with the short scale, so I always though it made obvious sense: every time you add a comma, you jump up. So 1,000,000 is a million, 1,000,000,000 is a billion.
But 10^9 is a billion and 10^12 is a trillion makes very little sense. I mean, I know it's 1,000 * 1,000^2 and 1,000 * 1,000^3, but it seems to make more sense to me to say that a million million is a billion, and a million million million is a trillion. So 1,000,000^2 and 1,000,000^3, with the bi and tri right there.
Still, that ship has long sailed, so 1,000 * 1,000^3 for a trillion it is.
I've been thinking we can un-sail that ship by getting explicit about which scale (when it's relevant).
Always "million", but any time you say "billion" say "long billion" or "short billion". If it catches on, after a sufficient period we can drop the "long" once everyone realizes that long is better (and gives us milliards and billiards).
